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saw you in colors last night, and you didn't even have to get undressed.
Thomas had had his outfits labeled since age nine, the age when he had met his best friend. He often wished he never had to label the colors of his outfits, but he was at least glad that he wasn’t alone. Everybody in the world was colorblind, or at least, they were if they had surpassed age eight and hadn’t yet connected with their one true soulmate, yet. Thomas had always found the whole situation to be bullshit, something his best friend had always been eager to agree with him on. It was how they first clicked at age nine. There were no uncomfortable introductions or pathetic debates. From the start, the pair had wanted to see in color, and so they had made a habit of trying to guess each other’s outfits.
Newton Xavier, his best friend. Nobody ever really greeted him with his first name, normally resorting to a nickname he had picked up. Newt. Thomas remembered finding both versions of the name hilarious when he was little, stifling laughter when they had first introduced themselves to each other, and later spending a few years occasionally teasing him about it. Thomas stopped around age thirteen and he was grateful that Newt had never asked why. He figured the blond was just too relieved to risk bringing it up, possibly reigniting the teasing once again. Thomas had just simply stopped finding the name funny. If anything, it had picked up a little bit of significance. Thomas had never found another best friend quite like Newt and he never planned to.
“I still don’t believe you’re blond.” With palms pressed into the wet grass beneath him, Thomas leaned back a little, shifting his gaze from up at the sky to his friend who was laying on his stomach in the grass beside him.
Newt looked up from the book he had been trying to read for class the next day, hands still propping it open as he raised an eyebrow at Thomas. “We literally established what our hair color was when we were nine. We’re eighteen, now, Tommy.”
Newt was right. Thomas just didn’t know what else to say. They hadn’t guessed each other’s outfit colors that day and the brunet just figured his friend was scared. For nine whole years, Newt had always been wrong. Thomas, however, always having been right after catching onto Newt’s strategic pattern. He had stopped guessing his outfits when he was ten. Newt, however, refused to stop guessing, telling Thomas that he wanted to get it right one day, even though Thomas’ whole scheme of things was wildly unpredictable. After all, he just threw on whatever was clean and labeled by his mother. He didn’t want to pressure Newt into asking simply because he wanted to move the conversation along and so he didn’t.
“This is so stupid. What if I never find my soulmate?” He wondered aloud, distress mixing in with his words. All he wanted was to look at the grass below his palms, legs, and his feet and be able to see green, a color he vaguely remembered at all.
His fist slowly clenched around a wad of grass and he roughly tugged the blades right up from their roots. He held his hand above Newt’s head as he leaned over, and he unclenched his hand, watching the blades float down into Newt’s hair.
Newt swatted at him, then. “Bloody hell, Thomas. Stop that.”
Thomas laughed, smiling so hard there were crinkles at his eyes as he watched the blond rather grumpily go back to reading his book. “Hey, what are you even reading, anyways?”
Newt snorted, suddenly lifting his gaze from the book again and locking eyes with Thomas. God, Thomas wished he knew what Newt’s eye color was. Newt claimed he couldn’t remember and had not wanted to ask his mother. He
had said he wanted it to feel like some silly gender reveal party. Thomas had multiple times been tempted to go ask Newt’s mother himself.
“Maybe your soulmate’s already dead,” Newt ended up saying instead, alarming Thomas a little bit as he pulled himself from being lost in colorless eyes, eyebrows shooting upwards.
“Okay, Newt. Thanks, buddy. That helped a lot. Go back to your dumb book.” He turned away from Newt, then, his gaze falling onto the exterior of his home.
It was a small building, truly. It had one story. Thomas had lived in the home since before he could even speak or understand what it was like to have blues and reds ripped right out from underneath him, but he knew he would never want to live anywhere else. There were too many memories. He remembered how problematic he had become as a child once he had lost the ability to see the dark colors that had once made up his Star Wars bed sheets. He had thrown fits nearly every day, refusing to look his mother in the eyes for a while. She had claimed she didn’t want him to have lived every day like it was his last at only seven years old, yet he argued that he would have liked the preparation, even at such a young age.
He acknowledged that although he had been problematic, Newt had been chillingly worse, as he had once sat down and had a discussion with the blond’s mother during a sleepover. He hadn’t been able to sleep and so he had climbed off of the mattress and walked down a flight of stairs into the boy’s kitchen. Newt’s mother had been awake, taking some pills as she downed some water. He had been eleven when he finally decided to ask the question he had been wanting to ask since age nine.
“Why does my best friend have a limp in one of his legs?”
She had gone rigid at the question, almost as if she hadn’t expected the question to come out of his mouth. Maybe she just hadn’t expected someone so young to personally ask her. She had tried to change the subject, Thomas remembered that much clearly, and she had tried to persuade him to head back up to bed before Newt realized he was missing.
He remembered pulling out one of the barstools that sat before the island, and he pulled himself up onto it, gripping the edges of the counter and announcing that he wasn’t going to go anywhere.
“That’s my best friend,” He had said, and he remembers the phrase that ended up tumbling out next as he had hurriedly tried to get her to tell him the information he wanted. The information he needed. “I have to know everything about him. It’s the only way I can protect him.”
Maybe it had been because as a mother, the words sent comfort pumping through her system, knowing that her son had such a good friend who was probably willing to die for him. Thomas never acknowledged it then, but thinking back on times like those, he was sure it had been hard for her, moving to Texas all the way from London. She had probably not met quite a lot of people, but as a mother, it had probably been harder on her to think of the stress and pressure she had probably bestowed upon her own son, who would have trouble making friends.
“He jumped off his little sister’s balcony when he first turned nine. He thought if he hit himself hard enough, the colors would all come flooding back. Maybe he just thought it was a dream.”
And Thomas remembered thanking her, clambering off to Newt’s bedroom where the blond had groggily woken up, rubbing his eyes with his fists as he asked if Thomas was okay and where he had gone off, too. Thomas also remembered entering through the doorway and closing the bedroom door back behind him, walking over to the edge of Newt’s bed and reaching over to ruffle his hair.
“I’m not leaving.” and he remembered going back to bed on the mattress that had been situated at the foot of his best friend’s bed.
Thomas spent eight years withholding the information from his best friend, knowing now that it had probably been wrong of him to ask something so personal about his best friend and not even personally asking Newt about it at all. He doesn’t even think Newt remembered that night at all. He had been too out of it.
Snapping out of his thoughts, he watched Newt push himself up from the ground and into a sitting position. He stared hard at Thomas as he closed his book, setting it down beside him. “But, no. I mean, seriously. What happens if your soulmate is already dead? If they died without color, does that mean you do, too?”
“That’s a horrible way to live,” Thomas admitted. “You spend your whole life clinging onto the fact that one day you’ll be able to see the purples and oranges decorating the late evening horizon again, only to die with the mere vague memories.”
Newt was silent for a moment. “That’s shit.”
“I know.”
Thomas groaned as he leaned back onto his palms, having had originally moved forward in response to the conversation. He lolled his head back as he stared up at the sky. “I hate seeing in grays,” He added, squinting his eyes as the sun beamed back at him. “I want to see the sun.”
“You technically are seeing the sun,” Newt shot back, a light smirk plastered across his face after Thomas sent a death glare his way.
“You know that’s not what I meant.”
“I know.”
“Glad losing your ability to see color hasn’t knocked down your lame ass humor a few levels,” He ended up joking back sarcastically, shaking his head.
It was silent again.
“Do you think kissing somebody who isn’t your soulmate gets rid of your chances to see in color again one day?” Newt suddenly asked, and Thomas’ head jerked to the side as he fell into a coughing induced fit.
“What?” His eyes locked with Newt’s.
“You know what I said,” Newt argued, letting out a soft puff of air, a pure result of mild frustration. “If let’s say, you got up and kissed… that girl in fifth hour. Teresa. Say, she wasn’t your soulmate and you never saw color. Do you think it keeps you from ever seeing color, whether you find your soulmate or not?”
Thomas couldn’t imagine himself kissing Teresa, and so he decided to say as much. “I can’t take this seriously. I would never kiss Teresa.”
“Not your type?” Newt laughed.
Thomas’ eyes flickered downwards from Newt’s eyes for a split moment before returning. He shook his head. “She’s a lesbian.”
Newt blanched. “Oh.”
Now, it was Thomas’ turn to laugh. “What? Didn’t see that coming?”
“Mate, listen,” He started, and he was rapidly waving his hands around in the air as he tried to explain himself. “I probably should have realized that her and that girl Brenda were a little too close.”
Thomas snorted. “You think?”
“Guess asking you if she’s your type is out of the question, too, huh?”
Thomas nodded. “Did you know they can see in color?”
Newt’s gaze had shifted to the ground and he had begun picking at the blades of grass a gentler way than Thomas had been doing earlier on, though he stopped at Thomas’ question, slowly looking up at him. An eyebrow arched. “No shit?”
“No shit. They were soulmates. But, I think you’re wrong, Newt. Brenda was with that one kid… uh, what was his name? Aris. She was with him beforehand and I used to watch them kiss in the halls and stuff. She apparently sees color exactly the way she remembers.”
“I don’t think you can exactly remember how you used to see it before,” Newt chose to argue.
“I think it doesn’t matter.” Thomas was blunt in his word choice. “I think seeing color again… I think it just feels good to have all that back. I don’t think it matters if it were the same as before.”
“Do you think you end up in love with your soulmate or what they give you?” Newt asked instead.
Thomas didn’t know what to say.
“I mean,” Newt added on with the casual roll of his shoulders. “You have never seen anybody break up with their soulmate before. Those who have—they have killed themselves. Maybe breaking up with your soulmate and breaking their heart ruins the connection.”
“There’s only been a few cases of that happening. I think to break up with the one person you love, you have to have been in a bad place already. I mean, that’s what the scientists and shit are saying,” Thomas responded.
Newt reached up to rub at his head. “Soulmates and colors give me a headache. I just want everything to go back to normal.”
“This is normal.”
“Tommy, I don’t want it to be.”
Thomas stared at Newt, the blond’s voice having cracked halfway through the brunet’s name. His heart swelled for his best friend. Although he wanted colors to reenter themselves back into his life, he was okay considering a life without colors normal. After all, it was practically all Thomas had ever known. Practically. Though, there was always that other part of him. The one clawing at his insides begging to bust out in a fit of fury from having been locked away for so long. It knew what colors were and it wants them back. Maybe Thomas’ ability to feel had a soulmate of its own and maybe that was color.
“You know if I could bring colors back to you, I would,” Thomas told him softly, and he stood up from the ground, taking a step or two before plopping right back down in his backyard. Now, he was sat right beside Newt. He nearly put his arm around the back of his best friend’s shoulder in a comforting gesture before deciding to reach over and grab up the book from the ground instead.
Newt looked over at it as Thomas held it in front of himself.
“This isn’t actually for school, is it?” Thomas asked, attention never lingering from the bold font on the cover of the book.
“No.”
Thomas flipped through the book then, seeing nothing but pages of greys, whites, and blacks. “It’s a book of colors.”
“I know.”
It was silent for a while after that. Thomas had instinctively thought that Newt had been able to see colors all along and had simply lied, but then he remembered the kind of person his best friend was and realized that Newt was just sad. Hollow and sad. He just wanted to remember.
“I want to remember, too,” Thomas told him, carefully setting the book back down in the grass as he turned his head to look at Newt.
Newt stared back at him and once again, Thomas felt himself grow frustrated. He didn’t know why it was so important that he knew the color of Newt’s eyes. He didn’t know why his eyes kept occasionally lingering on the wavy-haired boy’s lips from time to time as if a part of him needed to know exactly what those looked like, too. Thomas wanted to know every part of Newt, he had just always considered it to be an even closer friendship than most. Maybe Newt was just Thomas’ Brenda.
He was still staring at Newt, even when the other had turned away to answer what Thomas had assumed was his mother, calling from within the doorway of the house that lunch was ready. He had tuned her out, but he had been sure it was around the right time for something like that. After all, he had known his mother for eighteen years. He knew what kind of person she was.
“Alright, well. Lunch. C’mon, mate.” Newt stood up from the ground, then, and he started to head towards the porch steps.
Thomas’s hand shot out and he wrapped his fingers around Newt’s wrist as if in a million different black holes of disorderly internal emotion and struggle, the blond was the only thing keeping him grounded.
Newt raised an eyebrow, stopping his tracks as he was tugged backwards a little, and he looked down at Thomas. “Okay? Need a hand there, Tommy?”
Thomas didn’t respond, but he appreciated the way that Newt ended up helping him up anyways, even though Thomas didn’t need it. He had never needed it.
An uncomfortable sounding laugh left the back of Newt’s throat as his eyes fell upon the wrist Thomas had refused to let go of. “Thomas.”
Newt was facing him, now, and the part of him that had been scratching at his insides and crying out a million different emotions ever since he was eight grabbed up Newt’s other wrist in his free hand. He held them both, and he pulled Newt towards him, the only thing separating their chests from being pressed together being their hands between them.
Newt didn’t pull away, though even with eyes devoid of color, they screamed that he wanted to. Thomas didn’t know if he deserved a friend like Newt. He was only letting Thomas be a weird ass because he cared about him. Plus, Newt was just that kind of person.
“Guess what color my shirt is.” His voice was low and it came out in some kind of toned down whisper, barely audible even though they were a good few inches apart.
Newt blinked, staring, though Thomas watched his gaze travel down to Thomas’ shirt. “Tommy, I seriously don’t know.”
Thomas stayed persistent, holding his ground. “Guess.”
“Or—” wrong and so Thomas closed the distance between them, letting go of both of the other boy’s wrists in the process and he kissed him.
It was soft. Chaste. Something that had had no intentions of being anything more. Thomas just wanted to try it. He needed to try it because what if they weren’t supposed to be best friends? They were supposed to be something more? It would explain everything that had ever happened to Thomas up until this exact moment. When he pulled away, Newt was just kind of frozen, staring at him as if he had been a deer and Thomas had just practically run him down with the headlights of his car.
There was no change. Newt stepped back from Thomas. Thomas was searching his head for proper explanations, some kind of logical thinking that Newt could use to move on from Thomas’ mistake. He changed to hurriedly searching for apologies when he saw a single tear slip from his eye down to his cheek an Thomas took an instinctive step forward, Newt following suit with an instinctive step backwards.
“Newt, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry—”
“Black, you son of a bitch.”
“I—what?” Thomas had of course, expected the last part, but he just couldn’t understand where the color came from.
Newt suddenly stepped forwards again, hands reaching outwards as he suddenly cupped Thomas’ face and pulled him forward, connecting their lips again. Thomas’ eyes shot open wide in surprise and alarm. He couldn’t understand if Newt was having a mental breakdown and so it was the real reason he ended up pulling away. He would never take advantage of Newt like that, even if he kind of pulled some unforgivable shit prior to the second kiss.
“Newt, what the fuck?”
Newt stared at him for a minute, letting his hands drop back down to his sides only to push his palms hard into Thomas’ chest, causing the brunet to stumble backwards, tripping, and falling back onto his ass. He stared up at Newt in a mix of surprise.
“You fucking twat. You wore black. Your shirt is black. How many times have you worn black? You knew I would never get black.”
Thomas had a million thoughts hammering around against his skull and for once, the part of him that had caused him to kiss Newt had gone completely silent. He slowly looked down at himself. It took him a minute to process, but he remembered quickly that he had thrown on a shirt labeled black that morning.
“Newt, how did you—” and he was right. For the first time since they’ve known each other, Newt was right.
Thomas scrambled up from the ground, nearly tripping forwards at the speed of it all. He shot forward and cupped Newt’s face, staring at him hard, and suddenly there were colors. Springing to life right before his very eyes as shades of colors painted their way across the sky, across the ground, and across his best friend’s face.
Dark brown. The eye color he had been waiting to get lost in. His eyes darted back and forth as he not only stared into them, but tried to collect as much information as he could about the boy’s face as if he were scared that in a moment, it would all be ripped away from him again.
“Holy shit, Tommy.”
Thomas couldn’t agree more. Hell, he couldn’t have said it better himself. He slowly let go of Newt’s face, stepping backwards. He opened his mouth to say something, but closed it as his eyes fell upon Newt’s hair.
He couldn’t help but choke out a laugh, pushing Newt backwards a little bit, and although the boy stumbled, he held his ground better than Thomas had earlier on.
“What?” and Newt’s eyes darted back and forth across Thomas’ face, worried that something was wrong.
“I knew your bitch ass was lying about being blond. It’s light brown.” He smiled to himself, then, half proud for always smelling something fishy and half in love with the silliness of having remnants of grass leftover in his hair.
“What? My mother and I are so having a talk, what the hell?” Newt was in distress and Thomas couldn’t stop laughing. “Be right back, mate. I’m going to run home and throw something.”
He started heading off and Thomas watched, a serious expression plastered across his face as he started off after him.
Newt turned around, raising an eyebrow and letting his gaze follow Thomas as the dark brunet made his way around to walk beside the other boy. “What are you doing? I said I would be right back.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
Recognition slid across Newt’s face, almost as if he remembered at age eleven when Thomas once told him that before. Thomas watched him, waiting for a reaction. Staring at him, he realized that seeing Newt in color was like seeing the world for the first time.
“Good.”
And maybe that’s why people lost their ability to see in color when they turned eight years old. The world was just preparing them to appreciate everything a little bit more. Hell, if Thomas could do it all over again, he would, and he wouldn’t have changed a thing. The world was better than the one he left when he was seven. Maybe the part inside of him that had spent countless years clawing at the pit of his stomach was only silent, now, because it knew it, too.
— and the boys spent countless days together during that senior year surrounded by pretty blues and purples. Thomas could safely admit that his favorite of them all was still the color of his soulmate’s eyes.